According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, authorities received “multiple calls complaining of smells and smoke emanating from a burning pile of horse manure in the town of Throop” on July 5.

The fire started spontaneously at a stable where the owners were storing large piles of manure, according to the DEC. The fire spread from the stable and nearly ignited a valley filled with dead trees and dry brush, officials said.

It took three fire departments more than two hours to extinguish the fetid blaze.

The stable owners told the DEC that the manure had spontaneously caught fire in the past, but this time the wind – instead of carrying the smoke away from other residences – brought it straight into neighbors’ open windows.